I'd hope to recapture hiphopresearch.com but it didn't happen. Could have done it if I'd been willing to spend more money but it just wasn't worth it, even though Google has incredible difficulty keeping up with domain changes to the degree that it's highly unlikely they'll do anything other than keep directing folks to the .com address.

I would have spent the money if there had been some solid response from academics but, as I've discovered at Cultural Research, it's all take and no give if you're providing such information without being part of academia. I will leave this site up as a courtesy but I'm shifting my attentions elsewhere.

Big ups to those that did reach out and thank me. But there were just so few of you. That's why now, more than ever, I'm committed to commercial projects in a relatively open market.

Though my initial plan to use this blog as a way of gathering sources for an annotated bibliography of book-length academic studies of hip hop is still in the works, I've decided to include relevant news in addition to information about key research papers as available.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be posting more regularly, just that I'll have more to post!

Update - Feb. 2010:

Wow, this was an optimistic post, even with the mild caveat. I'm focusing my attentions elsewhere though I am reaching out to some library publishers to get a response on a possible annotated bibliography of hip hop research. I didn't send out a formal proposal for the project but did check in with someone who had asked that folks send initial ideas before submitting proposals. She's passing it on to some related people.

I have to admit, when it comes to hip hop projects, you never know how folks will respond to the content. For example, I had an agent propose a book on hip hop to the Idiot's Guide series or one of the other ones. They definitely balked at the topic.

I have some thoughts on that but the library publishers I contacted have done reference works on hip hop before so they should have a different perspective. I have heard that hip hop books have not done as well for publishers as many hoped so that may play a factor as well, though a reference book tends to have a different audience than a book for the general public from a major publisher.

I'll update you when I know something and hope to get back with more new books before too awfully long!

The Hip Hop Research book list now stands at 51 titles with more on the way. I found a bunch more studies while compiling the last batch.

I'm kind of facing a dilemma regarding certain journalistic works and books of photography documenting hip hop performance and culture. I've only added a handful of those and I'm not sure how many to add given that they're outside the realm of the annotated bibliography of academic studies.

But they're good books to know about and to have listed so I may continue with more of that though the focus will remain on monographs and collections.

I've added a book list in the right hand column. Because of the way the blog backend works, it's my best solution for now though it will get ludicrously long for a sidebar before all is said and done.

Kind of like the categories list at ProHipHop. That's what happens when you're on TypePad where they still don't have a useful tagging solution.

But otherwise, TypePad's new and improved service is working well for this project.

Please spread the word. There are folks out there that will find this project of use.

While earning my MLS (Online via TWU), I took a course in collection development with Dr. Lynn Akin. My class project was focused on titles for a hip hop studies collection and this is one of my core resources for my initial work on an anotated bibliography.

Certain elements, such as pricing and rationale, are clearly related to the needs of a class assignment but it's a decent list of resources with a wide range of academic volumes related to hip hop research.

I'll begin getting posts up later this week. They will be fairly simple featuring a book cover, when available, and links out to a couple of general resources such as WorldCat.

The idea at this stage is to develop a list of what will be included but to make that list public in a way that can be useful and, possibly, mildly entertaining.

Key initial resources will include ProHipHop's Books category and a paper I did for a collection development class a few years back while earning my MLS from Texas Woman's University. I'll be posting the paper for download for folks that might find it more immediately useful though it's clearly a class project.

I've actually been putting off this project for a while because I envisioned it as a traditional annotated bibliography that I would gradually create but wouldn't take public till a publisher was in the loop. However, that process felt so tedious and I would like to help raise wider awareness of this emerging field so blogging a book list gives me a way to move the project forward in public while also enjoying the initial process.

I do intend to spend time with each book in order to create the annotated bibliography itself and look forward to examining the research approach of each author, especially since my previous academic training focused on interdisciplinary qualitative research.